BIRMINGHAM, Alabama -- The last remaining finalist for Jefferson County's first professional manager has removed his name from consideration, County Commission President David Carrington said Friday.

Carrington said Patrick Thompson, the former county administrator for Hamilton County, Ohio, which contains Cincinnati, made his decision Friday morning.

Carrington said the search will continue. State law gives the commission an additional 120 days to look for candidates if none of the finalists gets a supermajority of commission votes by June 1.

He said Thompson, who lives in Ohio, would have made an "excellent first county manager," but the uncertainty of the county's finances and a move from the Midwest to the South could have played a role in his decision.

"He may have been reluctant to come in knowing he had to cut an additional $80 million when we've already cut $30 million," Carrington said. "And, oh, it has to be done in two weeks. These are decisions that have to be made in weeks, not months."

Thompson, in an interview, said Friday that he loved everything about Alabama, Jefferson County and Birmingham, but the commission did not have a unified view of the county manager's job.

"This is their first attempt at this," Thompson said. "They will stub their toe. They will learn from this process. Maybe they will get it right the second time."

Thompson said the five-member board is "still trying to figure out what the role of the county manager is. They are not all on the same page. They all have a grand vision -- five visions -- and they don't have a single vision."

Three finalists were selected for the position from an initial field of 56 applicants for the job, and all three withdrew before the county could vote.

Earlier this year, the county hired Dallas-based Waters Consulting Group, a national search firm that specializes in recruiting city and county managers, to find qualified candidates.

The commission can "scour the country high and low" for a professional manager but must have a clear understanding of what it wants, said Thompson, who spent five days over the past two weeks speaking with commissioners, county officials, members of the business community and others.

Commissioner Jimmie Stephens said the panel can learn from the process.

"This is new," Stephens said. "We need to define what we expect in our county manager. We need to understand what the parameters are."

Stephens said he intends to use the next four months to find the best candidate.

"We will look for the perfect fit to make Jefferson County whole again," Stephens said. "We may have to narrow the search to someone who has as much a vested interest in the community as we do."

Hiring a county manager requires approval of four of the five commissioners. It appeared Thompson didn't have enough votes for the position when two commissioners this week suggested that the county come up with another slate of candidates.

Challenge

The challenge for commissioners is finding someone to take a professional manager's job with the problems facing Alabama's most populous county .

The county has been dealing with a long-running $3.2 billion sewer debt that it cannot repay and, more recently, general fund woes triggered by March's Alabama Supreme Court ruling that wiped out the county's occupational tax and business license fee. Those sources generated $74 million, one-fourth of the county's general fund, in 2010.

All of that was before last month's tornadoes, which left debris that officials estimate will cost at least $400 million to clean up, although federal and state money will likely cover most of those costs.

Thompson, who is being recruited for positions in Illinois and Wisconsin, did not comment on the county's financial uncertainty, but said he was confident he could have helped the county solve its problems.

"They let a good one get away," he said. "They couldn't snag me. They couldn't reel me in. They couldn't seal the deal."

The state Legislature passed a law in 2009 that mandated the commission hire a county manager by April 1, 2011. Lawmakers in March extended the deadline to June 1 to give the commission more time to find the best candidate.